GM luxury brand Cadillac performed at about the industry average with its automotive tech features, according to the recently released J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Tech Experience Index Study, which measures the experience of new 2024 model-year vehicle owners with the included technology.
Cadillac scored 487 points out of a possible 1,000 in the study, placing it just under the 494-point study average across all surveyed brands and in seventh place behind Genesis, Lexus, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, and Land Rover.
Compared to last year, however, Cadillac scored lower on the 1,000-point scale. The brand received a rating of 533 in 2023 in overall innovation, 46 points higher than its performance this year. At the time, it was tied by Lexus and outperformed only by Genesis and Hyundai. As the study reveals, however, this may not be a problem exclusive to Cadillac itself.
User experience with tech features is down across the board for 2024 as automakers continue to pack more and more technology into their offerings. Some tech is received very favorably by vehicle owners, such as camera rear-view mirrors, traffic and blind spot warnings, and, in particular, the highly popular smart climate control.
However, there is also a lot of new tech that consumers find to be useless or even irritating based on the survey’s results. Fingerprint readers, gesture controls, and facial recognition all fall into the category of features that “unsuccessfully try to solve a problem that owners didn’t know they had,” according to J.D. Power. Gesture controls, for example created 43.4 problems per 100 vehicles during the survey period and, in owners’ opinions, offer little functionality.
Most people surveyed seem to prefer keeping control of their vehicle while driving, making many advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features likewise seen as not particularly useful. Drivers mostly liked specific alerts such as blind spot warnings and cross traffic warnings as the best part of such systems while showing only weak interest in active driving assistance, whether hands-on or hands-free.
Kathleen Rizk, a senior benchmarking director at J.D. Power, pointed out that while “many innovative technologies are answering customer needs,” the result also “makes it clear that owners find some technologies of little use and/or are continually annoying.”
The J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Tech Experience Index Study brought together the responses of 81,926 individuals who have owned 2024 model-year passenger vehicles for at least 90 days, giving them time to assess the usefulness and convenience of tech features.
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Comments
Sadly, they haven’t made anything in a few years that has excited me. Massively disappointed in the XT4 (I hate driving it; wife’s car) and the XT5 is stale (had the ’17 traded for 21 XT6 and it was acceptable but not great. The CT series feels cramped when I’m driving with poor visibility. I traded my XT6 for a 23 GMC Sierra because they no longer make EXT. I give 0 f’s about electric.
So yeah, I get it, Caddy’s are average these days and nothing exciting coming.
I love my ’23 XT4 Premium Luxury AWD, light gray(it’s not silver!) w/platinum leather interior.
It’s not for me. The noise that comes from that whiney 4-banger into the cabin is just too much for it be considered a Cadillac. It’s “peppy” but struggles at times and doesn’t feel smooth unless I drive it like my grandmother.
I LOVE my 2021 XT4 Premium Luxury too. Everything about the vehicle is WORTH the price paid.
And here is where the problem lies…being “average” in todays luxury car world is a losing proposition, and what makes this even worse is the fact that Cadillac is going to attempt to push a $350,000+ EV on todays car luxury car market! Have you guys at GM totally lost your sense of reasoning or what? That kind of money for any vehicle calls for nothing but the very best in everything, and certainly not in an EV of any form or shape! However Rolls Royce has such a vehicle now made available to the public, in fact Jay Leno just purchased one for himself, and I’d bet that he paid close to 400K (more maybe?) for it, and I’m also willing to bet that Jay Leno would not spend that kind of money on a new EV Cadillac, it just wouldn’t make good sense and Jay is always one to spend his money wisely, he knows that no matter what kind of GM product you’d care to purchase nowadays, spending the money that Cadillac will be asking for their luxury EV just is downright crazy…and that coming from a luxury car manufacture that is (as of right now) rated as just being “average”! Does GM/Cadillac actually expect to keep up this (average quality) facade up and still consider itself in the same class with other luxury vehicles? Standard of The World? I don’t think so Cadillac…not when yo’ve got an average rating for any of your vehicles!
I don’t get it, I just don’t get it…you’d think that someone in the GM upper echelon would be hiding their collective corporate heads when they see things like this being reported to the whole world! You’d think that Mary Barra would also be screaming at the top of her lungs that this sort of nonsense will not be tolerated in todays luxury car market place, that heads will roll, and those responsible for this craziness will be out of a job! Then again, what if this sort of nonsense is acceptible and GM or Cadillac Motor Division’s higher up’s are not really worried about it, and no one is losing sleep over this mess and in fact there just might be some “bonus money” being paid out to those within the GM corporation that allow this sort of craziness to exist! Hummm? Makes you wonder just whose running the company anyway, doesn’t it? Tsk, Tsk.
Cadillac accounts for around 10% of GMs sales, and almost half of that is Escalades. The people working for Cadillac are working on EVs and Escalades. Everything else is done, in other words, they dont care.
Actually only 5.7% of their sales in the US and 5.6% globally but I agree with what you’re saying.
Given their % of sales, I’m not sure Cadillac would even have a future if it wasn’t for the Escalade.
WOW that was a lot of writing. Cadillac and Buick are Premium models from GM not Luxury. Cadillac has added some Luxury models recently for a select few. I have had MANY GM vehicles over the last 80 years and never complained about ONE
Drove my new 24 XT6 AWD Premium for 6 months and decided I was not putting up with it’s technology. I hated it. Found its technology complicated, not easy to locate what I was looking for, too many steps thus impossible to remember. The owners manual did not help solve issues. Cadillac should offer some type of customer classes as an option so one can learn its offerings. The dealerships inadate the customer with too much info at delivery and rush through the technology explanation so they can close and be done with the sale.
Traded the Cad in on a new 24 Buick Enclace Avenir AWD. The technology was user friendly, much less complicated, fewer steps to get what I wanted. Yes easier to use and remember. Sad this is the last year for the six cylinder in the mid size SUVs.
Cadillac was once the best from GM. But an average rating is awesome considering the below standard leadership from Mary Barra.
Unless Mary Buick Envision Made in China-Barra is fired soon, Cadillac might be China-only no later than 2035. Buick is on schedule to be China-only by 2030.